A Fascinating Traitor

C >> Col. Richard Henry Savage >> A Fascinating Traitor

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

"One single sound, and I blow your brains out!" hissed the disguised
Englishman. And, astounded at the apparition of a stalwart Hindu
warrior, Jack Blunt's teeth chattered with fear. Dragging the
half-throttled wretch to his feet, Hardwicke tore off the sash of
his Indian sleeping robe and bound the villain's arms behind him.
Picking up his saber, he then cut the bell cord and lashed the
fellow's legs to a chair. Then, giving the canvas package a closer
glance of inspection, Hardwicke pressed the edge of his tulwar to
Jack Blunt's throat, when he had closed the window, half raised,
and shut the shutter so neatly forced with a jimmy. "What's in
that package?" he said, with a sudden divination of Alan Hawke's
overmastering influence.

"A lot of valuable jewels," the sneaking ruffian answered. "If
you'll turn me loose, I'll now save what's dearer to you than all
this diamond stuff that I was sent for. I've watched you here for
three weeks. You're after the girl. By God! Hawkes got her now!"

"Do you speak the truth?" said Hardwicke. "If you deceive me, I'll
butcher you! Speak quickly! You've got just one chance to save
transportation for life now!"

The coward thief muttered: "The old man is on his way back from
St. Heliers, and Hawke's got a dozen French fellows to run the
girl off and perhaps 'do up' the old man. But he wanted this same
stuff. He's a downy cove!"

While Jack Blunt worked upon the lover's fears, "Prince Djiddin's"
hands, on an exploring tour, drew out a knife and two revolvers
from the captured burglar's wideawake coat. He picked up the bulky
bundle which the thief had dropped, and saw the bank seals of
Calcutta and the insurance labels thereon. "I'll give you a show.
Keep silent!" cried Hardwicke as he cut the cords on the fellow's
legs. Then grasping him by the neck, he dragged him bodily to the
door of the "Moonshee's" room, where he thrust him in. Then he
locked the door, and knocking on his own, induced the frightened
Janet Fairbarn to open at last. The poor woman screamed as "Prince
Djiddin" calmly said: "Go and rouse up the girls. Send one of them
to bring the gardener and his two men over here. I've got the thief
locked up."

"My God! who are you?" screamed the affrighted Scotswoman, as the
Prince dropped into English.

"I'm an English officer, madam. Don't be a fool. Rouse these people.
There's been one crime already committed, and there may be another.
There's no one else in the house. Get the three men over here at once
to me. I'll stand guard over this thief." Then as Janet Fairbarn
fled away shrieking and yelling, Harry Hardwicke locked the recovered
package in his own trunk, which stood in his room. Bounding across
the hall, he then dragged his captive over the way and thrust him
in a helpless heap into a chair. Before Hardwicke was dressed, he
had extorted the secret of the rendezvous at the old Martello tower.

"Now, sir, no one has seen you yet," said Hardwicke. "If you guide
me there and save her, you shall cut stick. If you betray me, then,
by God, you shall die on the spot." A groan of acquiescence sealed
the bargain, as the three gardeners, armed with bili-hooks and
pruning-knives, now burst into the room. "One of you stay here with
the women. Light up the whole house now. Let no one leave it till
I return. Now, you two, each take a pistol. Get your lanterns, at
once, and a good club each. Come back instantly here."

The procession was descending the stair, when there was heard
a vigorous knocking on the front door. As it opened, the excited
"Moonshee" leaped into the hallway. "What's up?" he cried, forgetting
his assumed character. "I came over, for I had a telegram that
the Stella was in with old Fraser and Nadine. The General sent a
special messenger to me."

"Run up and get my saber and your own pistol and join me! There's
foul play here! The house is all right! Come on, for God's sake!"
shouted Harry Hardwicke. He led his captive by the trebled bell
cord passed with double hitches around the burglar's pinioned arms,
and the Moonshee now leaped back--ready to take a man's part--for
he easily divined the treachery.

Out into the wild night they hurried, leaving behind them
the barricaded "Banker's Folly," now gleaming with lights. "Where
in hell is Simpson?" demanded Eric Murray, as he struggled along
clutching the gleaming tulwar tightly in his hand.

"Drunk at Rozel Pier, I suppose!" bitterly answered Hardwicke.
"Come here and just prick this fellow up into a trot!"

As they hastened on, Prince Djiddin succeeded at last in convincing
the two gardeners that he was not a ghost, but a reincarnated
Englishman who had been larking disguised as a Hindu Prince. "What's
the devilish game, anyway?" puffed out Captain Murray, still in
the dark, as they struggled on in the darkness along the road.

"Hawke has tried to kidnap Nadine!" hastily cried Hardwicke.

"My God! what's that?" They soon came up to an overturned carriage.
The traces had been cut, and the horses and driver were not visible.
The gardener's lantern showed to them only the insensible form of
the maid, Mattie Jones, who lay moaning in a sheer exhaustion of
terror. "How far is it to the tower?" almost yelled Hardwicke, his
heart frozen with a new terror. "They have murdered her, my poor
darling!"

"The tower is now about three hundred yards away!" said the gardener,
as Hardwicke sternly dragged his reluctant prisoner along.

"On, on!" he cried. "We may even now be too late!" They were only
a hundred yards from the tower, when the sound of rapid pistol shots
was heard, wafted down the wind, and a confused sound of cries on
the cliff was wafted to them, as a dozen twinkling lantern lights
appeared on the brow of the bluff.

"It's a rescue party!" joyously cried Murray. "Hurry! hurry on to
the tower!"

With cheering cries, the pursuers neared the old Martello tower,
and a clump of dark forms vanished quickly into the shrubbery as
the three lanterns were flashed full upon the door. Eric Murray,
sword in hand, was the first man at the entrance, as a desperate
assailant leaped from the narrow door and sprang upon him, pistol
in hand. There was the snap of a clicking lock and then the sound
of a hollow groan, for the robber's pistol had missed fire, and
Captain Murray ran the wretch through the body with the razor-bladed
tulwar!

There was a silence broken only by the trampling of approaching
feet, as Red Eric flashed the light in the face of his fallen foe,
for the storm had spent its fury and the stars were gleaming out
at last.

"By God! It's Hawke, himself!" he shrieked. "Alan Hawke, a midnight
robber!" But, Harry Hardwicke, with the two men at his back, had
dashed on into the gun-room of the old tower, leaving Murray with
his prostrate foe--empty, not a sign of any human presence.

With one wild cry Hardwicke turned to the door, "Nadine! Nadine!"
he yelled, and his voice sounded unearthly in the night winds.

And then, from over their heads, a cheery hail replied, "All right,
on deck! The lady is safe up here with me. I am Professor Hobbs,
the American. Who are you?"

"Friends! friends!" cried Hardwicke. "The house was attacked! Where
is the Professor?"

"I reckon they have carried him off!" the nasal voice of the American
answered. "If they've killed him it's a great loss to science, you
bet! I'm coming down." And while the gun-room was soon filled with
a motley crowd from Rozel Pier, Professor Alaric Hobbs long legs
dropped dangling down his rope ladder. He gazed, open-mouthed, at
the anglicized Prince Djiddin.

"Who are you--friends, also?" now demanded the astonished "Prince
Djiddin" of the rescuers.

"We are friends of Simpson!" cried the nearest. "The smugglers
bludgeoned him and then threw him off the cliff, but the banks
were soft and wet, and his heavy coat saved him. He sent us up here
to the rescue, for he crawled half a mile on his hands and knees.
We've found the old Professor tied to a tree over there in the
bushes. They are bringing him here. Simpson is at the 'Jersey
Arms,' all safe."

"See here, stranger!" demanded the American, still standing amazed,
pistol in hand, "I winged a couple of these damned robbers; they
tried their best to get the girl away from me. I'm a pretty good
shot. Now, are you a prince or a fraud? I suspicioned you from
the first! If you are a fraud, then the History of Thibet is all
damned rot! I suppose that you were just 'girl hunting.' The girl's
yere sweetheart. I see it all now. Hoodwinked the old man! Who's
this fellow that you've got tied up there, anyway? One of the
Johnny-Bull-Jesse-James gang?"

"Why! It's Joe Smith, our friend!" chimed out a dozen friendly
voices. Then Harry Hardwicke stepped up to the shivering wretch who
stood gazing on Alan Hawke, now propped up on a doubled-up coat,
and rapidly bleeding to death. "I'll keep your secret, and save
you yet, if you will disclose the whole, and keep mum!" Jack Blunt
nodded, and hung his head in shame.

But, on his knees beside the dying man, Eric Murray bent down his
head to listen to the final adieu of the dying wanderer, whose luck
had turned at last. "Justine Delande is to have all! The drafts,
and my money, at Granville. Murray, I'll tell you everything now.
Ram Lal Singh murdered old Hugh Johnstone to get the jewels that
Johnstone stole. The same ones that this old scoundrel, Fraser,
here, is hiding." The red foam gathered thickly on Hawke's trembling
lips. "Tell Major Hardwicke all! He's a good fellow! The knife that
Ram Lal killed old Fraser with is in my own trunk at Granville,
stored in Railroad Bureau. He got in through the window. I was in
the garden, and caught him coming out. I was watching old Johnstone,
for fear he would give me the slip. I didn't tell--I wanted to
come over here and get the jewels myself. Hang old Ram Lal! He's
a cowardly murderer! Telegraph to the Viceroy to arrest the jewel
seller; he will break down and confess at once. Make him pay poor
Justine Delande all my drafts--Johnstone gave him that money for
me to keep me silent about the stolen crown jewels. Now--now, all
grows dark! Lift me up high--higher!" he gasped. "I played a hard
game, but the luck turned--turned at last! That woman, Berthe Louison
was too much--too much for me! Poor Justine! Tell her--tell her--"
His voice grew fainter and fainter.

"Do you know this man, Hawke?" whispered Hardwicke, forcing Jack
Blunt's face down to the dying renegade's glance.

"Never--saw him--before!" gasped Alan Hawke. "Poor Justine, tell
her--" and with a sighing gasp, his jaw dropped, and at their feet,
the fool of fortune lay dead, with a last lie on his lips.

"By God! He was dead game!" muttered Jack Blunt, kneeling there,
by the stiffening form of the wreck of a once brilliant Queen's
officer. He dared not lift his craven eyes!

"He had the making of a gallant soldier in him!" cried Hardwicke,
as he turned to the American, and motioned to the rope ladder. "We
must not let Miss Johnstone see the body. Some of you run and get
a ladder or some other means to aid her descent. And rouse up the
nearest farm people. Get a carriage and bring the old Professor
and maid here!"

While a dozen volunteers darted away to bring a conveyance, the
rest hastily covered Hawke's body with their coats. The gun-room
was now lit up, and in five minutes the waylaid carriage was drawn
by hand to the door of the lonely tower. Within it lay the bruised
and exhausted old scholar, bareheaded and ghastly, in the light of
the flickering lanterns, while pretty Mattie Jones, with a shriek
of terror, ran to the side of her sweetheart, his arms still bound
with Prince Djiddin's sash. Jack Blunt's "swell mob" assurance
stood him in good stead.

"It's all a mistake, my girl," bluntly said the mobs-man, feeling
safe now that Alan Hawke's lips were sealed in death. While the old
Professor was revived with copious draughts of "usquebaugh," Jack
Blunt saw the flash below him, on the darkened seas, of a red light
above a white one. And he heaved a great sigh of relief,

"There goes the Hirondelle now, driving along out to sea with the
whole gang," he murmured. "Now, by God, I am safe if this yellow
masquerader only plays the man!" There was a hubbub of cackling
voices, as on the night when the geese saved Rome! Above them, on
the barrack room floor of the Martello tower, Harry Hardwicke was
already holding Nadine Johnstone's drooping head upon his breast,
while the lanky American gazed at the strange picture before him.
The girl's arms were clasped around her lover's neck. "Do not leave
me--not a moment!" she moaned. Alaric Hobbs, with quick forethought,
tossed his blankets down below, with a significant gesture.

"Darling! You will be mine for life, now!" cried the happy soldier,
as he covered her shivering form with his coat. Alaric Hobbs had
promptly descended and hastened the necessary preparations for
departure. "Damn the explanations. Let's get the whole party out
of this!" he said to Captain Murray, and then rejoined Hardwicke.

"Tell me all, quickly!" said Hardwicke. "I am a Queen's officer and
shall telegraph to the Home Guards and send for General Wragge. I
must report this by cable to the Indian Government. There is justice
yet to be done!"

"I was taking some private star observations here," whispered Hobbs,
bending down at Hardwicke's warning signal. "Storm bound, I waited
for the return of my wagon at dawn. I was aroused from sleep by
the sounds of a struggle below.

"Some one had dragged this young woman screaming and wailing into
the tower below. She soon fainted. I heard the followers tell the
leader of the gang that the coachman had just cut the traces and
decamped with the horses. He then bade them gather all the gang
waiting in hiding so as to carry her down to some boat below,
and then closing the door, he stood on guard outside. They were,
however, baffled. Some of the scoundrels had taken the alarm and
fled, seeing the lights of the other party moving up from the pier.
Then the desperate leader tried to lead a party to steal a horse
from the nearest farmhouse. They were busied in their quarreling.
I dropped my ladder down, and while they wrangled, cried softly
to the imprisoned woman to mount the ladder. She knew my voice at
once, as I had been a visitor at her uncle's house. With my help,
she got up into the barrack room, and, you bet, I quickly pulled
up my rope ladder. In ten minutes more, the door was opened. The
trick was discovered. They tried a pyramid of men to reach the nine
feet. But I waited till they were all good and blown with their
exertions and then, shot a couple of them! You'll find those
fellows lingering somewhere in the bushes. I had stowed the girl
safely away in the middle of the pier, over the doorway, between
two pillars. She was game enough. I let them just shoot away a bit.
I kept my powder and lead to kill. I've even now four cartridges
left.

"But when you came on the ground, the whole coward gang skedaddled
at once, and the brave chap you killed got his dose for good, for
he stood his ground like a man! The girl didn't bother me. She
fainted in good shape when the close fighting began. I was a dead
winner from position. I could have stood them off for hours!"

"You are a hero!" warmly cried Harry Hardwicke.

"Let's all get out of this!" replied Alaric, modestly.

The American offered Hardwicke his cocktail bottle. "Let's get her
down. I hear carriage wheels now. Would you just tell me your real
name, now, the name you use when you are not doing your 'character'
song and dance." The young officer smiled at the American's rough
address.

"Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, and, this lady's future
husband," confidently remarked Prince Djiddin.

"Oh, yes," grinned Alaric Hobbs, "the last part I'll take for
gospel truth. Well, Major, I'm glad to know you." And he then, very
practically, aided the descent of Miss Nadine Johnstone, for a
dozen stout arms now held up the ponderous old ladder which had been
purposely dislodged by the Coast Guardsmen. Alaric Hobbs surveyed
his battle ground.

"If they had only dared to use lights, I might have had a harder
fight," chuckled Alaric Hobbs, as he descended the very last one.
"Major," said he huskily, "I've got my things corraled up there,
and the instruments, and so on. Leave me a couple of men, and get
your own people back now to the Folly. I'll 'hold the fort' here,
till you bring the proper authorities. Our man won't run away now.
He is 'permanently fixed' for a long repose from 'further anxieties.'"

But fiercely bristling up, old Andrew Fraser now loudly demanded to
be allowed the ordering of all. "This is an outrage," he babbled.
"You are a cheat, a fraud, an impostor, in league with the robbers."
So, fiercely addressing Major Hardwicke, he tried to drag away
Miss Nadine Johnstone, at whose feet the stout Mattie Jones was
blubbering and wailing.

"Captain Murray," sternly cried Major Hardwicke, "take Miss Nadine
and her maid to the Folly. Leave the two gardeners on guard. Return
here as soon as you can, for the Professor and myself. I will come
over with him. Have a horse at once saddled and bring a man to
take my dispatches to General Wragge and for London. Bring me some
writing materials. This must be reported at once."

"Go now, dearest Nadine," her lover implored. "I will join you at
once. Trust to me, all in all. I will never leave you again," and
then and there, before her astounded guardian, Nadine Johnstone
threw her ams around her lover in a fond embrace. "You will come?"

"At once," cried the Major, as he cried out hastily, "Drive on!"

Old Andrew Fraser writhed in vain in Hardwicke's grasp. "Be quiet,
you damned old fool!" pithily said Alaric Hobbs. "They saved your
life for you!"

"You shall never darken my doors," raged Andrew Fraser.

"I will go there to-night, and at once remove my property," coldly
answered Hardwicke. "After that I care not to visit you, save to
lead your niece to the altar. But I will have a reckoning with you!
Don't fear!"

"You shall never marry her," the old pedant cried. "You shall answer
to me for this whole dastardly outrage."

"All right," coolly said Hardwicke. "It's man to man, now. I will
marry your niece within a month, and, with your written permission!"
And not another single word would the disgusted Hardwicke utter--while
old Fraser clung to Alaric Hobbs, whining in his wrath. In an
hour, a motley cortege slowly left the door of the martello tower.
Murray and Hardwicke walking, armed, beside the carriage, where Mr.
Jack Blunt, still bound, was the sullen companion of the half-crazed
Professor Fraser.

To the demands of "Joseph Smith's" friends Hardwicke replied: "He
will undoubtedly be released tomorrow by the proper authorities if
there is a mistake."

A smart groom was already half-way to St. Heliers, galloping on
with a sealed letter to General Wragge, the commander of the Channel
Island forces. "That will bring Anstruther over at once. He must
act now!" said Hardwicke. "In two days Ram Lal will be in irons at
Delhi, and I think that we will prepare a crushing little surprise
for this defiant old fool and miser, Professor Andrew Fraser." And
Red Eric Murray now inwardly rejoiced to see the end of all his
masquerading as the Moonshee. He received a parting salute, also.
"You are no gentleman, a vile swindler, sir," raved old Andrew, as
Captain Murray allowed him to descend and enter his own door. The
"History of Thibet" fraud rankled in old Fraser's mind.

But the "ex-Moonshee" only smiled and politely bowed, while "Prince
Djiddin" sternly marched with his prisoner, Jack Blunt, upstairs
and then locked the doors of his apartments. It was an "imperium
in imperio."

In the hall, he had turned and faced Andrew Fraser only to say:
"I shall await here, sir, the orders of the civil and military
authorities; yes, here, in my own room. The very moment that they
take charge, I shall, however, leave your roof. But not until then!
And for your future safety, I warn you to moderate your ignorant
abuse."

There was no sleep in the house until the gray dawn at last
straggled through the mists of night. And the sound of outcry and
excited alarm long continued, for Professor Andrew Fraser and Janet
Fairbarn were excitedly wailing over the easily detected work of
the burglar, in the old pedant's study. The aged Scotsman ran up and
down the hall, tearing his hair and bemoaning his lost manuscripts
and papers. For, he dared not announce the loss of the stolen crown
jewels!

The family coachman had already departed for Rozel Pier, to bring
home the wounded Simpson, while a doctor, summoned by the messenger
from St. Heliers, was led by Janet Fairbarn to the apartments of the
heiress. Murray and Hardwicke rejoiced in secret over the recovery
of the key to the whole deadlock--from Delhi to London! The game
was now won!

At ten o'clock, a staff officer of General Wragge joined Major
Hardwicke and Captain Murray in their room, while one of the terrible
army of twelve policemen of an island populated with "three thousand
cooks" watched over the "Banker's Folly," and another garrisoned
the old martello tower, where Alan Hawke lay alone in the grim
majesty of death. The fox-eyed American professor "invited himself"
to breakfast with Professor Andrew Fraser and cheered the broken
old man.

"Never mind, we will finish up the 'History of Thibet' together,"
he cried, "when these two swashbucklers are gone, and the house
will be much quieter when the girl is married off and out of the
way." But old Andrew Fraser refused to be comforted. He sternly
forbade all communication with his ward and bitterly bewailed a
further personal loss, which he dared not explain!

"There was a suspicious French fishing-boat lately seen knocking
around Rozel," acutely said Alaric Hobbs. "We also found the bloody
trail where they dragged their wounded away down to the beach.
And so they are off on the sea, with your valuable plunder. No one
knows the dead scoundrel up there."

"But we will finish the Thibet history, if I have to go out there
myself and get the honest information." Whereat old Fraser feebly
smiled and opened his heart to Alaric Hobbs at once. When a bustling
country magistrate arrived to potter around, Andrew Fraser was
astounded to see the General's aid-de-camp lead out the man whom
the two officers had guarded, and send him off to St. Heliers under
a military guard.

"Hold this man only as a suspicious person. There may be some
mistake. They say he is known at Rozel Pier as an honest man," said
the aide. "The real robbers seem to have escaped in the boat. The
dying robber did not seem to know this person, who has undoubtedly
borne a good character for a month past at the Jersey Arms
as a lodger." It was true, and even the befuddled Simpson, on his
questioning, only could falter that he had been attacked by three
unknown footpads. He failed to make any charge against the mute
Jack Blunt. "This man is a proper, decent fellow enough," kindly
testified the old soldier.

In vain Andrew Fraser raved to the Magistrate, demanding that Major
Hardwicke and Captain Murray should explain their past conduct.
"I am directed by General Wragge to say that he will visit you,
himself, officially, to-morrow, Professor Fraser, and he will
have an important governmental communication for you. Until then,
I desire these two gentlemen to be allowed to remain in your house.
They will remove all their luggage this evening." And then, old
Fraser, with a presage of coming trouble, shivered in a sullen
silence. Conscience smote him, sorely.

"The lost jewels!" In fact, a handsomely appointed carriage and a
van, in the afternoon, removed all of the effects of the two pseudo
"orientals," who, half an hour after the carriage had arrived,
appeared in their respective undress uniforms of the Royal Engineers
and the Eighth Lancers, to the dismay of old Fraser--now affrighted
at his dangerous position. There was gloom in the house now, for Miss
Nadine Johnstone flatly refused to even see her guardian a single
moment! And Simpson, alone, sat in conclave with Major Hardwicke,
who had learned privately of the secret removal of Alan Hawke's body
to St. Heliers. Messengers, in uniform, coming and going rapidly,
were hourly admitted to Major Hardwicke's presence, and already a
pale-faced woman was on her way from Geneva to rejoin Madame Alixe
Delavigne, at the old chateau mansion where Captain Murray only
awaited the arrival of Anstruther now ready to open his siege
batteries on the man who had covered up his brother's crime. There
was not a word to be gleaned from the authorities, and St. Heliers
was simply convulsed in a useless fever of curiosity. Even Frank
Hatton, representing the London press, was muzzled. Not a soul
was, as yet, permitted to approach the old martello tower, where
Alan Hawke had faced the Moonshee, "man to man." A squad of coast
guardsmen sternly picketed the vicinity of Rozel Head. And a great
smuggling raid was the only accepted explanation to the public.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28